Remote communications and paging systems are ubiquitous in the modern world, particularly in fields where workers must remain “on-call” in order to respond to a particular emergency at a moment's notice, such as in the fields of emergency response, emergency rescue, and various medical fields. In hospital settings, for example, nurses must be readily reachable in order to respond to a particular patient's needs as such needs are often critical and time sensitive.
In crowded settings such as hospitals it is not uncommon for a large percentage of workers to utilize such technology. This can lead to increased noise pollution, ambiguity regarding whose pager was activated, etc. Furthermore, workers such as nurses often attend multiple patients, situations, and responsibilities simultaneously. Often times, upon receipt of a page, the worker must then contact a single pre-determined central location who then provides the worker with the specifics of the intended message. This system leads to great lag time between the sending of the message and a response by the intended recipient, additional organization and manpower requirements, and general nuisance regarding the obtrusive nature of the system, both audibly and visually.
Various attempts have been made to provide pagers of an easily transportable or inconspicuous nature. Examples of these attempts can be seen by reference to several U.S. patents. U.S. Pat. No. 6,597,281, issued in the name of Thomas, describes a device which integrally incorporates pager capabilities into a belt buckle housing.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,853,293, issued in the name of Swartz et al., describes a wearable communication system with a wrist-mounted control module and various other components and electronic controls which allow a user to transport the system during daily use in a hands-free manner.
Additionally, ornamental designs for a pager device exist such as U.S. Pat. Nos. D 423,010, D 483,773, D 507,558, and D 523,416. However, none of these designs are similar to the present invention.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives, each of these references suffer from one (1) or more of the aforementioned disadvantages. Many such devices do not provide additional functionality useful during a daily routine. Also, many such devices are difficult to access or utilize due to the manner in which they are restrained or transported. Furthermore, many such devices are not easily portable due to inherent limitations in range of suitable mounting locations on a person and difficulty in removal or relocation of the device. In addition, many such devices do not provide inconspicuous or otherwise unobtrusive appearances and notification functions. Moreover, many such devices do not provide a system for quickly notifying a receiver of particular information regarding the nature of the pager communication. Accordingly, there exists a need for a pager device without the disadvantages as described above. The development of the present invention substantially departs from the conventional solutions and in doing so fulfills this need.